Babies taste with more than just their tongues

A closer look

Infants aren't just crying machines; they are omni-directional flavor sensors. While adults have roughly 10,000 taste buds confined mostly to the tongue, babies are born with up to 30,000 taste receptors distributed across their entire oral cavity. This heightened sensitivity to flavor makes them intensely reactive to sweet and bitter tastes, which is an evolutionary survival mechanism to ensure they guzzle breast milk and spit out potential poisons.